With the prevalence of the Internet and network connectivity in households and businesses, many people obtain and/or provide information through a variety of websites and many online businesses transactions take place through business-related websites. For security reasons, many websites require a user to be identified and authenticated in order for the user to access information or conduct business by way of the user first logging in with a username and a password. When a user accesses a particular website that requires user login for the first time, the user needs to sign up by providing an acceptable username and password. In other words, for every new website signup, the user is expected to provide a fresh username and password (together referred to as “login information” hereinafter) and remember the login information for later login.
Typically, users tend to employ the same username and password that are easy to remember and recollect across most or all websites. However, a negative consequence is the exposure of users' website accounts to a “break once, run everywhere” (BORE) attack since, once a given user's username and password are stolen, most or all of such user's web accounts are suddenly vulnerable. Conversely, it is inconvenient for a user to come up with a number of different usernames and passwords and later remember them correctly or use the correct login information for the correct website.
Near Field Communication (NFC) is a standards-based connectivity technology that establishes wireless connection between two devices in close proximity of each other, typically in the order of a few centimeters. NFC allows users to transfer information by touching, or tapping, one device with another device. As with proximity card technology, NFC uses magnetic induction between two loop antennas located within two NFC-enabled devices that are within close proximity of each other, effectively forming an air-core transformer. The act of bringing one NFC-enabled device to close proximity of another NFC-enabled device with or without the two devices physically contacting each other, is referred to as an “NFC tap” or “one tap” operation hereinafter. With an NFC tap operation, a user can conveniently perform a variety of tasks, including mobile payment, secure login, wireless pairing, triggering peer-to-peer data exchange, file transfer, file sharing, mobile gaming, user identification, and so on. In the United States, for instance, many smartphones currently on the market already contain embedded NFC chips that can send encrypted data a short distance to a reader located next to a retail cash register.
NFC is an open platform technology standardized in ECMA-340 and ISO/IEC 18092. With these standards, ECMA is European Computer Manufacturers Association, ISO is international Organization for Standardization and IEC is for the International Electrotechnical Commission. Generally, these standards specify the modulation schemes, coding, transfer speeds and frame format of the RF interface of NFC devices, as well as initialization schemes and conditions required for data collision-control during initialization for both passive and active NFC modes. Furthermore, they also define the transport protocol, including protocol activation and data-exchange methods.
The detailed description is described with reference to accompanying figures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. The same numbers are used throughout the drawings to reference like features and components.